Update on sugarCRM
It’s been almost a months since I took my company live on sugarCRM‘s CE (Community Edition) software. In that time I upgraded the software to the latest stable version of 5.5.2. And I used it. A lot. Below are my impressions about it.
Overall, I’m very pleased with sugarCRM. Major kinks have been worked out, largely thanks to the latest release. And I don’t regret not going with vTiger. Although vTiger has more modules, sugarCRM has a built-in mailing list functionality.
Campaign/Mailing list:
Speaking of this mailing list: it seems to be much more stable in release 5.5.2. In the prior release, I was struggling to get the mail out with errors and timeout issues. These seem to have been resolved. I had no problems sending out hundreds of targeted emails, and then tracking opens, clicks, bounces and opt-outs.
Home screen customization
I absolutely love the ability to customize the Home screen. I set it up so that after logging in, all the latest information is laid out at a glance: upcoming calls, meetings, calendar. I can see Leads, Accounts and Contacts added or updated in the last few days. Very useful.
New fields
Adding new fields to existing forms is a breeze. It’s extremely useful to be able to create new drop-down values and be able to filter on them. There is even capability to do mass updates on the new field values. Unfortunately, you don’t have an option of adding existing fields to the mass update form – just existing fields plus new fields.
Reports
There are no out of the box reports that come with the CE (Community Edition) version of the software. For now, I am getting all of my information via online inquiries. I did have to add new fields and use them as filters. But I definitely see the need for more complex data mining. I am exploring several possibilities (JasperReports, Zucker, and a few others) and will report back if I can get them to work.
Data import/export
Simple as can be. Each module supports 1-click Excel export. Just select which records to export and proceed. Import is just as simple with a mapping form where you specify how everything is mapped. Custom fields are included as well. Very nifty.
Mandatory gripes
My review would not be complete without some griping about the software. Here we go, in no particular order:
- Existing fields can’t be added to the mass-update form. Only newly-added fields are allowed
- There is a bug that does not allow all selected records to be added to a Target List. There is a workaround, but its cumbersome.
- No built-in reporting.
- The email module is EXTREMELY SLOW. If you want to send email within sugarCRM, it’s a challenge. I can see that it’s a useful feature, since an email can be attached to a Contact or an Account for historical purposes. But its just SO SLOW!
- LinkedIn integration. It only exists at the Account level, not at the Contact level.
The near future
Release 6.0 RC has just been released. A stable version is not far behind, I hope. It promises a lot of new enhancements in the UI area. I am looking forward to testing it when it comes out.
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